Holy Prophet Jeremiah in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

1. The wondrous Prophet of the Lord, who was sanctified already from his mother’s womb, was from Anathoth. In Taphnae of Egypt he was stoned by the people and died, and he was placed in the place where the Pharaohs dwelt. For the Egyptians honored him, because they had been benefited by him: by his prayer, both the venomous snakes (asps) that were destroying them died, and also the beasts of the waters, which the Egyptians call Ephoth and the Greeks call crocodiles. And all who are faithful even to this day go to that place, and by taking some of the soil, they heal the bites of asps.

They say that Alexander of Macedon, when he came to the Prophet’s tomb and learned these things about him, transferred his relics to Alexandria and distributed them throughout every part of the city and around it, thereby driving away the asps from there. In their place he introduced the snakes called argaloi, which he brought from Argos, from which they also received this name.

Moreover, the Prophet gave a sign to the priests of Egypt that their idols would be shaken and fall to the ground through a child Savior who would be born of a Virgin in a manger. For this reason, even until now they honor as a goddess a virgin who has given birth, and they place an infant in a manger and venerate it. And when King Ptolemy asked what the cause of this was, they said that this mystery is ancestral, handed down to our fathers by a certain holy prophet, and we believe, they said, that this mystery will be fulfilled.

It is also said of the Prophet that before the destruction of the Temple he took the Ark of the Law and what was within it and placed it beneath a rock, and said to those present: “The Lord who was revealed on Sinai has departed to Heaven, and He will come again to legislate on Sinai with power, and there will be a sign to you of His presence, namely, when all the nations will venerate the wood.” And he said that no one would bring out this Ark except Aaron the priest, and no one would open the tablets in it at all, neither priests nor prophets, except Moses, the chosen one of God. And at the resurrection, first the Ark will be raised and will come forth and will be placed on Mount Sinai, and all the saints will gather to it, awaiting the Lord and driving away the enemy who seeks to kill them.

On the rock he set as a seal, with his finger, the name of God, and the impression became like an engraving in iron. And a radiant cloud overshadowed the name, and no one will recognize the place nor be able to read it until that day. And the rock is in the desert, where the Ark was first made, among the mountains where Moses and Aaron are buried; and at night the cloud comes upon the place like fire, according to the ancient pattern.

The Prophet Jeremiah was advanced in age, small in stature, having a beard that came to a point. 

2. The hymns of our Church concerning the “most compassionate of all the prophets” (Ode 4), the Prophet Jeremiah, focus primarily on his calling to the prophetic office already from his mother’s womb, and even further back, on his election by God before he was even conceived in his mother’s womb. According to the words of the Hymnographer himself: “Lord, You foreknew before he was formed Jeremiah the glorious, and before he was brought forth from the womb You sanctified him as a prophet” (Vesperal Sticheron).

Indeed, the Hymnographer depicts the Prophet of God as a chosen arrow which the Lord had hidden in His quiver, so as to bring it forth and use it at the proper time: “A chosen arrow hidden in the quiver, O Jeremiah, by His foreknowledge your Master revealed you at the times that were fitting” (Ode 5). Yet he hastens to clarify that this election and sanctification of the Prophet, even before he came into life, does not mean the abolition of his freedom. That is, we do not have an absolute predestination according to which God arbitrarily chooses someone and determines his subsequent course. According to the Holy Hymnographer, who here expresses the faith of our Church, we have a kind of relative predestination, in the sense that God, foreknowing — as the All-knowing One — the future response of man’s freedom to His call, prepares him for the work to which He has decided to call him. “Lord, You sanctified Jeremiah the glorious prophet, as foreknowing truly the freedom of his will” (Vesperal Sticheron). And elsewhere: “He who has foreknown all things, foreseeing the movements of your mind, O Jeremiah, revealer of God, appoints you as a guide of the people” (Ode 1).

The foreknowledge of the Prophet’s free response to God’s call was indeed confirmed, which means for the ecclesiastical poet that the Prophet not only accepted the call from the Lord, but also himself struggled to purify the eyes of his soul from every defilement of sin, so that he might stand at the height of his calling. “Having clearly purified the faculty of vision of your mind from the defilements of the flesh, you were shown to be a most beloved witness of the truth to your Creator” (Ode 1). And this is a general truth in the spiritual life: God calls man and desires him as His co-worker, when man also responds to this call through his struggle against sin and his passions.

Thus the Prophet, having the ears of his mind pure, so as to hear what the Spirit of God was dictating to him (“having pure ears of the mind, you were counted worthy to listen attentively to the Spirit speaking to you” - Ode 5), began his work, which moved on two levels: the level of calling the people to repentance and the level of his reference to the future Redeemer Messiah Lord who was to come. In the call to repentance, unfortunately — as was almost always the case with the prophets — he did not see positive results. Not only did the people not respond, but on the contrary they mocked him and in every way attempted to silence him by force, something which they eventually accomplished through stoning (“Souls of stone and strangers to the fear of God killed the divine Jeremiah with stones” - Synaxarion Verses). The Prophet, of course, endured many sufferings in his prophetic ministry, such as, for example, being thrown into a filthy pit — indeed, the interpretation given by the Hymnographer to this demonic act of his compatriots is very striking: “The impure people of Israel could not endure the myrrh of your fragrance and shut you up in the pit” (Ode 3) — yet nevertheless he continued to call the people to repentance, foretelling to them the disasters they would suffer if they continued to be disobedient to the will of God. The Prophet, precisely because he was a prophet, sees the destruction as certain, and for this reason already laments the fall of Jerusalem. The laments of Jeremiah have remained proverbial in history — the well-known “Jeremiads” — which on the one hand lament the destruction of Israel, but on the other hand turn the people with hope toward the way out that will surely come if the people repent and call upon the Lord. As the Hymnographer says: “You lamented the lawless people being led into violent captivity by godless barbarians, O blessed prophet” (Matins Kathisma). And here the Christian bows before the great soul of the Prophet, who, despite all the sufferings he endured from his compatriots, did not cease to lament for them, to continue to admonish them, and to pray for their salvation.

But, as we have said, the Prophet does not remain only in the preaching of repentance and the lamentations over destruction. He also sees the future that is coming in the person of the Redeemer Christ. And this is joyful and full of gladness. The Holy Hymnographer repeatedly notes this dimension. “While writing lamentations, O prophet, you did not darken the divine gladness with which you flourished from infancy” (Ode 7). And the future gladness is the presence of the Messiah, who will save Israel and the whole world, though passing through the suffering of the Cross. “You foretold mystically the death of the Redeemer, O proclaimer of God; for the lawless people of the Jews raised Christ upon the wood like a lamb, the author of life, the benefactor of all creation” (Ode 6).

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.